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Sinusitis Misery: Mast Cell Madness???

ahmo

Senior Member
Messages
4,805
Location
Northcoast NSW, Australia
I know that xylitol nasal sprays such as Xclear are supposed to be good for biofilm disruption, thus thwarting bacterial infections, but could xylitol encourage fungal infections since it's a sugar alcohol?

I've tried other nebulizing NAC and glutathione to disrupt biofilm, but they both irritate my nose and make it stuffier.
I think xylitol was helpful in finally clearing my infection. I now make my own xylitol spray, use it AM/PM. I've been doing this 5-6 months, no evidence of fungus. Also make xylitol mouthwash. nice.
 

Kathevans

Senior Member
Messages
689
Location
Boston, Massachusetts
@ahmo I haven't read through this thread, and don't know if someone has mentioned it, but what about oil pulling? I tried his for about five days running recently, using about a half a tablespoon of coconut oil for twenty minutes, then rinsing with salt water,brushing with baking soda, and gargling with peroxide solution and water.

Every time I do the oil pulling, there's a moment some period into it when my sinuses clear,and the effect remains when I'm done. This reminds me that I have to get back to this! For me it was very healing. My mouth has been problematic since I got sick twenty years ago...not yeast, but something that causes red soreness and fissures. The oil pulling had it looking and feeling much improved...
 

Gondwanaland

Senior Member
Messages
5,092
@ahmo @Kathevans
I am going thru a sinusitis quickly developed from a rhinitis caused by sulfites. I wonder if the xylitol and oli pulling (coconut?) work thru homeopathic principle by giving more of the same insult (sulfites, phenols) to provoke a healing reaction.
 

Basilico

Florida
Messages
948
This may not help most people, but I wanted to put this out there in case it helps someone.

My husband had chronic sinusitis and general congestion for his entire life. In thinking back to his childhood, he remembered that his congestion disappeared when he spent summers in a dry desert climate on the Mediterranean.

We live in Florida, which is super humid, and thinking that the humidity in the air (or the mold it supports) might be contributing to his issues, we started running a dehumidifier all day and all night - keeping the humidity under 50% at all times (lower if possible). As soon as we were able to get the apartment 'dried out' his congestion disappeared. The minute we get lazy with the dehumidifier and the humidity creeps back up, his congestion returns instantly.

Running an A/C is not enough to get the humidity low enough to make a difference, it really needs to be a dehumidifier. The temperature of the air is not really important, just that the humidity is under 50% (under 40% is ideal, but under 50% retards mold growth). I'm still not sure if it's the mold or something else that's been bothering him, but it definitely is tied to the moisture in the air.
 

Gondwanaland

Senior Member
Messages
5,092
I have a progress to report:

Yesterday I tried to soften the hardened mucus inside my sinuses and did Vick inhalation with a pan with hot water. It seemed to help like 20%, and later in the day the mucosa in my nose and throat became dry and burning. At bedtime the burning feeling was very uncomfortable and I came up with a moisturizing potion: 1 tsp of honey + 1 tsp of melted butter. I swallowed it (it tasted delicious) and got immediate relief from the rawness AND the sinus immediately cleared. I guess the sinus has already cleared during the inhalation, but due to the mucosa rawness, I had the sensation it was still clogged.

Washing the nasal passages with warm saline solution causes the same dehydration of the mucosa as the vick vapors.

I suppose the vitamin A from the butter was responsible for the mucosa rehydration.
 

Kathevans

Senior Member
Messages
689
Location
Boston, Massachusetts
@Gondwanaland Washing nasal passages using the saline in a neti pot? I have done this to great effect particularly when I was severely congested with a cold and had to fly. I was afraid of bursting an eardrum. Using the neti pot helped enormously.

Honey, was always a remedy my grandmother gave me at night to sooothe a cough. No butter though!
 

Thinktank

Senior Member
Messages
1,640
Location
Europe
I've mast cell problems and sinusitis, bronchitis + asthma since the early stages of this disease.

I found great relief with the following supplements and i no longer need my inhaler and nasal steroid spray:
Quercetin (phospholipid formulation from Thorne)
Boswellia (in MCT oil gelcaps from NOW foods)
Curcumin (Phospolipid, soy free formulation from Thorne)
Butterbur + feverfew (from NOW foods)

I rotate these or combine two to three products on severe days, can't take it all the time because somehow it causes a feeling of overstimulation, like an abundance of adrenalin flowing through my body.
 
Messages
36
I had it for many years. It is healing now. Clear liquid started to run and later mucous comes out.

As I tought is was caused by the disease process I did not do anything special besides triying with the immune modulator to help the immune system fight it.

It is one of the things that got better with overall improvement.
what immune modulator did you use please?
 

Gondwanaland

Senior Member
Messages
5,092
The weird thing about this is I only experience it in my nostrils.
I know we discussed it before, but last night I had confirmation about salicylate allergy causing the nasal congestion (I had it from drinking a tea). In this case vit B5 should help, but the one I have at home is in tablets which contain contra-productive ingredients. Also I read the following, and remembered zinc being mentioned in this (and other) thread:

Hipkiss 2009 p. 93 (enclosed)
(Carnosine) controls the availability of zinc ions in neuronal tissue, especially the olfactory lobe where both carnosine and zinc are enriched (Bakardjiev, 1997; Bonfanti et al., 1999; Sassoe-Pognetto et al., 1993).
 

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Cinders66

Senior Member
Messages
494
I have chronic rhinitis not sinusitis as diagnosis - anti histamines no help, I'm on prescription decongestant sprays. They help a bit but it's a major symptom for me and it's severity is based on the intensity of the M,E day to day so they're definitely related and I think chronic rhinitis has been associated with CFS. Most of the time I can't actually breathe through my nose. We need mast cell research, immune research, allergy research and even blood vessel research, is the issue circulatory? So much research needed across many areas, and I see 3-5 noteworthy projects happening in the UK, how inadequate.

Baranuik https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3650978/
Idiopathic nonallergic rhinitis (iNAR) has been difficult to define because of the long differential diagnosis of rhinopathy in the absence of allergic rhinitis. iNAR has traditionally been a diagnosis of exclusion with no clear unifying pathophysiology. Increased sensitivity to triggers such has climate changes, cold air, tobacco smoke, strong odors, and perfumes have been thought to be characteristic, but recent studies do not support this hypersensitivity hypothesis. New investigations of the local nasal environment and systemic "functional" syndromes have offered new insights into this condition. iNAR may be a heterogenous disorder that includes (1) anatomic abnormalities requiring nasal endoscopy for diagnosis, (2) incipient, local atopy (entopy), (3) dysfunction of nociceptive nerve sensor and ion channel proteins, and (4) autonomic dysfunction as found in chronic fatigue syndrome and other functional disorders.

Baranuik again talking about neurogenic non allergic rhinitis
http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-4-431-88317-3_5
Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is an enigmatic and often disputed illness. The initial cases were described as rapid onset fatigue with flu-like symptoms of malaise, myalgia and a sensation of feverishness that were detected in infection-like epidemiological clusters. Almost 74% of CFS subjects have nonallergic rhinitis of probable neurogenic origin. Other potential pathological mechanisms such as allergy, infection and immune deviation are unlikely to play causative roles. These subjects are likely to find their way into our offices making it imperative that we learn to recognize the condition and its allied syndromes, and develop an empathetic but structured approach to their long-term care.
 
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Gondwanaland

Senior Member
Messages
5,092
http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fmicb.2017.00004/full
Front Microbiol. 2017 Jan 23;8:4. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2017.00004. eCollection 2017.
The Active Component of Aspirin, Salicylic Acid, Promotes Staphylococcus aureus Biofilm Formation in a PIA-dependent Manner.

Abstract
Aspirin has provided clear benefits to human health. But salicylic acid (SAL) -the main aspirin biometabolite- exerts several effects on eukaryote and prokaryote cells. SAL can affect, for instance, the expression of Staphylococcus aureus virulence factors. SAL can also form complexes with iron cations and it has been shown that different iron chelating molecules diminished the formation of S. aureus biofilm. The aim of this study was to elucidate whether the iron content limitation caused by SAL can modify the S. aureus metabolism and/or metabolic regulators thus changing the expression of the main polysaccharides involved in biofilm formation. The exposure of biofilm to 2 mM SAL induced a 27% reduction in the intracellular free Fe2+ concentration compared with the controls. In addition, SAL depleted 23% of the available free Fe2+ cation in culture media. These moderate iron-limited conditions promoted an intensification of biofilms formed by strain Newman and by S. aureus clinical isolates related to the USA300 and USA100 clones. The slight decrease in iron bioavailability generated by SAL was enough to induce the increase of PIA expression in biofilms formed by methicillin-resistant as well as methicillin-sensitive S. aureus strains. S. aureus did not produce capsular polysaccharide (CP) when it was forming biofilms under any of the experimental conditions tested. Furthermore, SAL diminished aconitase activity and stimulated the lactic fermentation pathway in bacteria forming biofilms. The polysaccharide composition of S. aureus biofilms was examined and FTIR spectroscopic analysis revealed a clear impact of SAL in a codY-dependent manner. Moreover, SAL negatively affected codY transcription in mature biofilms thus relieving the CodY repression of the ica operon. Treatment of mice with SAL induced a significant increase of S aureus colonization. It is suggested that the elevated PIA expression induced by SAL might be responsible for the high nasal colonization observed in mice. SAL-induced biofilms may contribute to S. aureus infection persistence in vegetarian individuals as well as in patients that frequently consume aspirin.

...
Salicylic acid (SAL) is a small molecule derived from plants with pleiotropic effects on eukaryote and prokaryote cells (Price et al., 2000; Patrignani and Dovizio, 2015). In addition, SAL is the main biometabolite of aspirin, the popular nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory agent regularly utilized by millions of individuals worldwide due to its known analgesic and cardiovascular protective activities. Furthermore, vegetarian individuals contain similar plasma concentrations of SAL when compared with patients consuming low daily doses of aspirin (Rajaram, 2003). The expression of virulence factors and regulatory genes is modified by SAL in several bacterial species (Pomposiello et al., 2001; Denkin et al., 2005).
...
Interestingly dietary salicylates play a significant role.
 

Gondwanaland

Senior Member
Messages
5,092
My acupuncturist pointed out that Brazil nuts, which were a part of my nut/seed mix, are essentially always rancid. I eliminated them, and suddenly the symptoms for which I was using this spread, eg. light-headed, other discomfort...the symptoms have been far less, and the need I was experiencing for the nut/seed mix has decreased. It seems I was adding to my oxidative stress by eating rancid oil, which then drove me to eating more of it. Nasty vicious circle.
Lately I have been considering the hypothesis of high Selenium inhibiting Zinc.